Drummond Central’s paid creative advertising program, ‘School of DC’, is back for another year, with applications opening this week.
Since 2018, the Newcastle-based creative agency has run the two-week, paid crash course for anyone wanting to get an authentic taste of the industry.
Several years ago, Drummond Central decided to do away with traditional work experience, where they felt people were not getting the proper time or attention amongst the busy day-to-day life of an agency. Instead, they launched the School of DC.
A small class of applicants are selected to form a ‘mini agency’, who spend two weeks at the agency working on a real brief for a real client, whilst attending workshops across the Creative, Account Handling and Planning departments.
People of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to apply – no experience or degree is required.
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Dan Appleby, Drummond Central’s managing director, said: “It’s so important that we encourage people into the creative industries from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, particularly now and particularly here, in the north east. Our ambition for School of DC is for it to be an opportunity to learn, gain useful experience, have fun, get paid and hopefully it’ll be the first step of some amazing careers.
“It’s one of my favourite things we do here and I’m really looking forward to meeting this year’s class.”
Last year, the agency made a hire from the programme, welcoming a new junior copywriter to their creative department. 2024 School of DC graduate and Drummond Central’s junior copywriter, Harry Card-Williams, said: “School of DC is what every placement should be like. You won’t be sat around twiddling your thumbs, making coffees and refilling the printer – it’s a jam-packed two weeks where you see how every department in an agency works. You get to not only witness the creative process, but actually do it yourself. From writing a brief, to coming up with ideas, to execution and finally pitching it to the agency and the client. It’s an intense two weeks, but that’s why it’s so brilliant. You learn and work at a pace that is hard to replicate outside of an agency. You make an array of valuable connections and gain invaluable experience.
“School of DC really is for anyone. Whether you want to be a planner, account handler, creative, or anything in-between, there’s something for everyone. And if you don’t know what you want to do? Even more reason to apply, you might just find out.”
This year’s School of DC is taking place from the 21st of July to the 1st of August 2025, in Newcastle.
